Category: Technology Author : Duncan Riley Posted: January 4, 2009
Tags : Facebook, Twitter
Speculation that Facebook will kill Twitter is as old as Twitter itself. The latest round came from AllFacebook, not exactly an impartial source, who argued recently that Facebook API’s could be used to build a Twitter like service.
Normally I’d be coughing right now, but a funny thing happened on the way to the forum.
Just before Christmas I installed a Twitter application on Facebook that imports all my tweets into Facebook as status messages. I don’t spend much time at all on Facebook, maybe 10 minutes a week, give or take, so I’m not a heavy user. I also don’t tend to interact a lot on Facebook either.
I had no expectations when installing the application, but thought simply that if I’m sharing it on Twitter, why not Facebook. Then something strange happened. I started getting emails that people were replying to my status messages. Not one or two, but lots. Sometimes six or more replies for one status upgrade. Perhaps not that remarkable, because on a good tweet I can get a lot more. But here’s the thing: those tweets nearly all received more responses on Facebook than on Twitter itself.
That I’m seeing this doesn’t make it a trend, but numbers here are important. I have less Friends on Facebook than Twitter, and yet Facebook is more popular overall than Twitter by over 10 times. But the friends I have on Facebook, often more selectively picked than Twitter, are not only on Facebook reading things, they’re actively engaging.
And I’m staggered.
Unlike some I don’t view either as a popularity contest; on Twitter in particular I regularly lose users with particular tweets, and I’ve always approached both as something I share on, not play to win on. But the use case Facebook vs Twitter starts to become compelling: if people are replying to me on Facebook, they might be saying interesting things on Facebook as well that I’m not reading. My time is precious, so should I therefore spend more time on Facebook and less time on Twitter?
Notably Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook said something similar, so I’m know I’m not alone:
I currently receive just as many if not more comment on my Facebook profile than I receive replies to my Twitter status updates.
Food for thought, but ultimately people go where people are. Despite its lack of third party tools, the volume of responses are compelling, and I might just start logging into Facebook once a day at least, and who knows, it might become more regular than that.
Jan 4, 2009
There has been a significant increase in responses to status updates on Facebook, and not just from the mainstream. People I know used to most often respond to me via FriendFeed are responding via Facebook at now with some regularity. But it's as I've always said, you should move to where the conversation is and not force it in one place. If it moves, I move.
Jan 5, 2009
I agree with the author too. I follow the same practise of importing my tweets to FaceBook and I find that the conversations are far richer there than on Twitter itself. Maybe it is because the conversations are threaded, which make it more contextual when an outsider views them than on Twitter?
Jan 5, 2009
I have a different group of people I regularly interact with on Facebook than on FriendFeed (…and now Twitter, though I still don't really converse on Twitter). I've tried getting them on FriendFeed but it hasn't worked. As of right now, Facebook's iPhone app RULES and when I'm on the go, I'm more on Facebook than FF. Shocking, I know.
But Facebook's notification system beats both FF and Twitter, plus viewing from my phone is so. much. EASIER than the clustermess non-mobile site. Try it. Who knows, maybe you'll like it. 
See you on Facebook, Duncan!
Jan 5, 2009
good work!
I found facebook very interesting than twitter…
however, some ideas are being derived from twitter by facebook..
the author of this article has expressed it so well…
i enjoyed reading this..
and digged it..
Jan 5, 2009
Facebook sucks. Blog posts that attempt to predict the future are generally 99.9999% wrong and simply link bait. Adding 'killer' to the title increases the posts shittyness. Why don't we leave the post mortems until after a death has occurred. Oh wait I know why, because the intention wasn't to write anything of value, it was to troll for responses and links.
Jan 5, 2009
WTF Duncan, I just got an ad on your site with automatic audio about winning a free wii without any ability to turn the audio off. Maybe I'll just avoid the site in the future.
Jan 5, 2009
interesting. i added the facebook app in early december too, and have started getting more conversations going with friends “irl” since. but i still get far more responses to tweets on twitter, possibly because i'm so spankingly witty and don't overtweet.
so while i'm connecting more on facebook these days because of the twitter app, its more like i'm visiting facebook 4-5 times a week, instead of once a fortnight. but the really noticable thing for me is my non-geek friends saying “you update facebook all the time, you must never leave it” leading me to explain twitter once again, and getting non-geeks interested in twitter for the first time in months…
Jan 5, 2009
okay!
Jan 5, 2009
This happens to me too. One theory is that those who comment the most often on Facebook are people hungry for the sort of conversation Facebook can't give them. These are the same people who are likely to embrace Twitter if they gave it a go.
Jan 5, 2009
It's far too flimsy to state that one service is killing the other. I also update Facebook status via Twitter, but my interactions are far more instantaneous on Twitter than on Facebook. The potential for longer and more detailed commentary exists on Facebook, but it feels hollow to expect that for a 140-character comment with virtually no explanation or nuance. For a longer comment, I'll work on my blog, or post a Facebook Note. We're comparing apples and oranges here, once again.
One reason that Facebook holds an advantage over Twitter – user base. My Twitter contacts are a fraction the size of my Facebook networks. That doesn't mean they're as valuable, just that they are more numerous.
Jan 5, 2009
It depends on how you use each service e.g. I use Facebook purely for personal relationships and Twitter for a mixture of personal and professional
Jan 5, 2009
I think the reason I get more responses to my tweets on Facebook is that my friends actually know me versus being more like contact or connections on Twitter.
Jan 5, 2009
Thanks for writing about this Duncan. I definitely think that there's the possibility that the conversation could “move to Facebook” as Louis Gray suggests. Hopefully it will soon be technically possible to integrate the two sites and theoretically that's one step away from eliminating Twitter altogether.
Personally I'm not leaving Twitter anytime soon but the volume of conversations on Facebook speak for themselves.
Jan 5, 2009
An interesting piece but I have to disagree. I also integrated Twitter and Facebook so that my Facebook Friends could see what I was Tweeting. The problem came that prolific Twitter users tend to use it with a work slant, whereas most people keep only real friends (or at least mainly friends) on Facebook. So when I started pushing work related content to my Facebook circle it was badly received.
It's also not clear to the Facebook community where the feed of upddates is coming from. So I get a few people respond to my Facebook status, but many more bemused with what “RT” means and why other updates have “@whomever” in them.
In short, for me it didn't work.
By the way, you are quite right in that it takes no time to put together a Twitter competitor with much the same functionality, but whatever you put together wouldn't have the support, would it? And history shows us that user (and, in turn, developer) adoption is key to something working, almost regardless of whether competitors offer more value and better functions.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Jan 5, 2009
I think Twitter will be around a while. I think Facebook is worried that Twitter is stealing thier users
Jan 5, 2009
You may also want to check out yonkly. It's the first “create your own” microblog to integrate with Twitter:
Jan 5, 2009
I would argue that disqus is what is most exciting…
but what has hurt twitter is it's reputation. many people got into twitter because they could not legally make friends on facebook. now that twitter has gone fascist and is chasing people off… that traffic is going to the better interface… facebook! the lesson here is that technology has little to do with the quality of the interaction. it is about the administrations tolerance and ability to facilitate communities of people who like having each other around. Within a month an account of mine reaches around 1000 followers on twitter, but yet I get chased off. obviously facebook finally figured out the right community balance… and twitter will only survive by creating communities with boundaries. A block is just simply not enough.
Jan 7, 2009
Why ary you posting about this in a swing forum??
Jul 7, 2009
I agree with the author too.
Jul 7, 2009
Great, I found Facebook is very interesting.
Jul 27, 2009
Thanks for your share! Good korean fashion wholeslae!
Jul 5, 2010
Okey, just agree with it.